Some new images as rover gets ready to try its first chemistry samples.

As planned, the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover has been doing a mix of driving and instrument checkout on its way to its first destination on Mars. That site is called Glenelg, and it has a number of features with an appearance to suggest they'll provide a glimpse into the red planet's geological past. So far, everything appears to be working smoothly, and a set of calibration samples show the instruments are working properly despite a long time in space and a rather dusty set-down.

The rover's spent a lot of time checking out the instruments on its arm—which is designed to get up-close and personal with rocks in order to better understand their composition, enhancing the history of Mars. One of the instruments on the arm is MAHLI, the Mars Hand Lens Imager, shown here.

MAHLI is meant for close-up, high-resolution images. It has a dust cover to protect it when not in use, but that cover has come off for some preliminary imaging. One of those images was a calibration target attached to the rover itself, which not only includes a series of well-defined markings, but also a souvenir from the rover's construction on Earth: a 1909 penny.

Enlarge/ One of MAHLI's calibration images, showing the exquisite detail it can capture.

Also on the turret at the end of the arm is the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS), which can be used to check the composition of the rocks. This also came with a calibration sample: a slice of New Mexico. A bit of basalt from an ancient lava flow was included on the rover, and the spectrum produced by scanning it could be compared with scans taken on Earth to make sure the instrument is operating properly.

Enlarge/ The Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS), also on Curiosity's arm, can examine the chemical composition of rocks on Mars.

Meanwhile, MAHLI has been put to use imaging Curiosity itself. This not only lets operators know the hardware it's looking at is working properly, but helps them test the precision pointing controls for the arm and camera. Some of its images it's taken include a before-and-after shot of the intake for the rover's on-board chemistry lab, which will accept soil samples scooped up from the Martian surface. The intakes appear to be functioning normally, so we may see some chemistry experiments taking place over the next few weeks.

Enlarge/ And after the lid on the chem lab's sample intake cover was popped open. This is another MAHLI image, taken from about 20cm away, and the dust particles provide a good indication of the camera's capabilities.

Meanwhile, the drive continues, with Curiosity having covered more than 100m on the way to its next destination. The rolling has ensured the rover now has a slightly used look, as you can see from the image up top. That may lower its resale value, but it's doubtful that anyone from JPL is complaining.

Meanwhile, in a chance bit of good luck, the Rover happened to be in place to catch one of Mars' two small moons creating a partial solar eclipse. NBC's Alan Boyle spotted this image in the raw feed from Mars. Expect an even better one once the folks on the ground have a chance to process it a bit.

The way those pictures look it seems like someone could just walk by in the background while taking a nice afternoon stroll through the desert. The sky is even blue-ish. I want to go to there -- after some terraforming.

Anyone know why the penny doesn't look very coppery? Is it the difference in light spectrum that reaches the surface of Mars, that's what 1909 US pennies look like, or just the calibration of my monitor?

It looks very grey to me but the dust around the edges is a reddish/pinkish brown.

The penny is a nod to geologists' tradition of placing a coin or other object of known scale as a size reference in close-up photographs of rocks, and it gives the public a familiar object for perceiving size easily when it will be viewed by MAHLI on Mars.

Anyone know why the penny doesn't look very coppery? Is it the difference in light spectrum that reaches the surface of Mars, that's what 1909 US pennies look like, or just the calibration of my monitor?

It looks very grey to me but the dust around the edges is a reddish/pinkish brown.

It's dull because it is 100 years old. I've. Got pennies that are only 5 years old the look the same way from being tarnished during use.

The pinkish ring isn't the penny but what it's sitting on, you can see the same pink behind the white calibration piece.

Man those pictures look almost too good. These pictures so far have given the best approximation for what it would look like to stand on Mars. It almost seems surreal. I know we're going to get some stunners in the years to come (hopes I don't jinx it) but so far I honestly feel like we're looking out at an Earth desert. Major props to the imaging team.

Something is going to happen to Curiosity and it's going to buried. In a thousand years some kids are playing in a field behind their house and find it. When they see the penny they will think it was launched in 1909. Way to go NASA , screwing up the kids homework in " What I did over summer vacation".

Does Ars think this will be a whole different mission, information-wise, with NASA using twitter and facebook to disseminate information about the mission to the public?

I, for one, find the information easier to locate, easier to keep up with, and I even sort of like the first person perspective they are giving curiosity. But I still depend on community fans and experts to put together things like descent videos and whatnot.

Something is going to happen to Curiosity and it's going to buried. In a thousand years some kids are playing in a field behind their house and find it. When they see the penny they will think it was launched in 1909. Way to go NASA , screwing up the kids homework in " What I did over summer vacation".

I doubt the penny is with the rover, it's just an image taken from the rover when it was still here back on Earth. So the joke's on you

Something is going to happen to Curiosity and it's going to buried. In a thousand years some kids are playing in a field behind their house and find it. When they see the penny they will think it was launched in 1909. Way to go NASA , screwing up the kids homework in " What I did over summer vacation".

I doubt the penny is with the rover, it's just an image taken from the rover when it was still here back on Earth. So the joke's on you

I just love to hear about the progress that Curiosity's making. I love seeing the images it sends back and knowing that soon we will be getting information about the actual structure of the planet itself. It's something that makes me proud to be alive today. Given what else is going on here, that's definitely something worth advertising. Congratulations NASA. This will definitely help in getting children excited for space again!

Oh, and let me know when to start packing my bags for the colony on the moon you're gonna get there in the next fifty years!

It's a layer of dust sitting on top of the adhesive that's holding the penny in place (the adhesive is red and shiny in the pre-flight images). The dust is pink because the underlying colour of the adhesive is showing through. Since the calibration targets are sited low down and facing to the side with the arm in the stowed position they got comprehensively blasted with grit during the landing. I'm pretty sure the dullness of the penny is down to a fair amount of abrasion of the soft copper from this event, and fine dust has settled in the abraded surface to colour it grey. Very little dust is visible on other, harder metal surfaces except near corners.

Some of these pictures are just incredible. It is weird seeing such clear photos of the martian surface.

Furthermore, the entire Curiosity program has led me to discover that not only have we been sending things to Mars for longer and more frequently than I first believed, but that we actually have a working satellite around Mars. That is ridiculously awesome.

If ever there was a vehicle that cried out for sealed - REALLY sealed - bearings, this is it. With all the seemingly exposed bits of wiring and mechanics, I don't know how it will survive its first major dust storm. You can already see debris collecting on it. Is all that fine dust finding its way into places where it cannot be?

Here are some of my favourite armchair astronaut work (created from public domain NASA return)

360 "StreetView" style panorama:http://www.360cities.net/image/curiosit ... 21.20,59.0Summary: Amazing virtual reality sensation of being on Mars. Click "Full Screen" and enjoy. It's a little fish-eye-lens-like (Mount Sharp looks tiny in this photo), so zoom out a bit for more realism. It's stitched so well from the NASA public domain images that some people asked if it is photo-shopped. Everything in the panorma is accurate, created from the actual images, except for some light retouching that was done to it. (Observed: Sun size is inaccurately scaled, sky fill for black gaps, and infilling for geometric distortion at where the pole was: The 'mast pole hole' was masked over, much like it is for Google StreetView images to hide the pole/car underneath the camera). Everything else appears consistent with the official NASA panormas. This meticulously user-stitched panorma got more media attention than the official NASA-stitched panorma, because it's so amazingly immersive.

High-definition descent video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZX5GRPnd4U&hd=1Summary: Released one day before the official NASA video, because an armchair astronaut downloaded already-transmitted raw photos (video frames) from NASA's site, and stitched them together into a video. This armchair astronaut beat NASA's press release department by creating the video when NASA had only had 95% of the video frames available raw on their site. NASA was waiting for the final frames to transmit from Mars before creating a video; it is like dialup taking several days to download a video. (In the Youtube version, the final frame is some blurry thumbnails, and there's no geometric lens distortion compesnation like in NASA's official video). Because the armchair astronaut released the video before NASA did, this video got more media attention than the official NASA video.

The dust on Mars is red, being largely iron oxide. The faint reddish color on the penny itself is dust, not copper showing through -- you see the same color of dust clinging to the left edge of the calibration target, round the inside edge of the APXS calibration target, and elsewhere. It looks like the copper itself is completely weathered.

Nearly all the dust and especially all the larger particles on the rover were put there as a result of the landing event.

I'm sure any mechanical part that must be sealed is. Exposed wiring doesn't seem like much of a problem to me. Or to JPL! And they learned a lot about the behavior of Martian dust storms watching the MERs for all these years.

Anyone know why the penny doesn't look very coppery? Is it the difference in light spectrum that reaches the surface of Mars, that's what 1909 US pennies look like, or just the calibration of my monitor?

To further complicate the penny color issue, i understand from some recent googling that NASA routinely adjusts the color balance of the Mars images, often quite a lot. There are a few incensed websites on the subject; if i recall correctly, they officially say that they adjust the color balance to "simulate what the scene would look like if illuminated by Earth's sun", which to me sounded like weasley language meaning "we adjust the color balance until it looks like you're on Earth so Mars seems like a sexier place". Indeed some of the images that were unadjusted (except to compensate for the imaging equipment itself) look a whole lot cloudier/dustier/darker/duller than the promoted images, typically lacking the blue-sky-fresh-air-clear-sunny-day-in-the-American-southwest kind of feeling you get from these. But more exciting, to me, for their murky alienness.

Personally i find it a little distressing that they modify them so much without even any kind of "this image has been adjusted for clarity to simulate earth sunlight" tag (afaik). Seems borderline deceptive/self-aggrandizing. But i guess an agency's gotta do what an agency's gotta do.

The way those pictures look it seems like someone could just walk by in the background while taking a nice afternoon stroll through the desert. The sky is even blue-ish. I want to go to there -- after some terraforming.

Those images have had their color balanced so that colors are more true and therefore more distinguishable but in that process the typical reddish tint you would see with the naked eye on Mars is reduced. It would be the same as reducing the warm golden tint of an impending sunset in Photoshop. It's a simple process to achieve in any photo editing program.

Some of these pictures are just incredible. It is weird seeing such clear photos of the martian surface.

Furthermore, the entire Curiosity program has led me to discover that not only have we been sending things to Mars for longer and more frequently than I first believed, but that we actually have a working satellite around Mars. That is ridiculously awesome.

If ever there was a vehicle that cried out for sealed - REALLY sealed - bearings, this is it. With all the seemingly exposed bits of wiring and mechanics, I don't know how it will survive its first major dust storm. You can already see debris collecting on it. Is all that fine dust finding its way into places where it cannot be?

I'm a retired aircraft mechanic. That kind of "exposed bits of wiring and mechanics" is typical of what you would see on modern military aircraft and is a lot more durable than you think. I can assure you that if something is exposed it is exposed for good reason. In the case of military aircraft it is because of weight savings and quick access for maintenance. For space vehicles it is merely for weight savings. All of that stuff should last for many years, as they have for the two other rovers on Mars.